I Still See Your Ghost
by CabooseHeart
Summary: In this universe, the Meta reaches Washington before Epsilon can be implanted in him and takes the AI. In this universe, Washington travels with the Meta to 'recover' the other AI, unknowing of just how broken his best buddy really is. In this universe, Agent Washington is a different man, a different man who will have to see for himself that the friend he once knew is no more.


**I Still See Your Ghost**

**Description: In this universe, the Meta reaches Washington before Epsilon can be implanted in him and takes the AI. In this universe, Washington travels with the Meta to 'recover' the other AI, unknowing of just how broken his best buddy really is. In this universe, Agent Washington is a different man, a different man who will have to see for himself that the friend he once knew is no more, and that only a shadow remains in his place. In this universe... things end in a somewhat similar light, but no one can deny there is room for recovery.**

**A/N: Cry with me about Agent Washington and South Dakota please. Thank you.**

* * *

><p>The surgery room lights were blindingly bright as Agent Washington came to, groaning as his eyes hurt from the intense frying of his retinas. He covered his squinting eyes on instinct, unable to hold back the smallest of hisses in the direction of the horrid flare. As Wash soon recovered from the ordeal, he realized something was... off. He could feel where the incision of where his AI should be on the back of his neck had been made, itching and bleeding. The man was tempted to reach back and rub the area around it to sooth the pain, but the words of doctors floated through his mind to scold him, making him sigh internally and cease his would be soothing hand.<p>

Strangely enough, Washington soon realized he was laying down on the cold, dirty floor of the surgery room. He had no idea how he had gotten there, but he was sure he'd find out soon enough. Wash glanced around, unable to see much with hazy vision and from, again, being laid out on the floor. The young man attempted to stand, but he couldn't process the energy to even move. The drugs the doctors had loaded him with were incredibly strong and made him almost feel... could empty really describe it? He didn't know, he only knew that the floor was really cold and that he'd like to get off of it very soon.

Eventually, after what felt like days (It had really only been three hours), a tall, curvy shadow came into view. Wash couldn't see the owner's face, but knew from the boots who it was. "Maine..." He grumbled out, groaning at the use of his groggy voice.

There was a low, steady growl, but the message was clear to Washington's ears. "Stay."

"Not like I can leave." Wash piped up, but shut his trap afterwards, deciding that it would be much better to just rest.

Not even a minute passed before Wash was over Maine's shoulder, being carried out of what he now realized was the on fire medical bay. "Wow, thanks, man." He muttered into Maine's shoulder, watching with squinted eyes as the SPARTAN carried him through the Mother of Invention... something wasn't right. "Where is everybody?" He asked.

"The other agents of Project Freelancer have evacuated. The Mother of Invention crash landed on Sidewinder." Sigma explained, appearing in front of Washington. "We were asked to come find you, then recover the AI."

"Wait, then where is everyone? Also, what do you mean by recover?" Wash asked, looking concerned. "And where's Epsilon? I thought he was assigned to me."

Sigma didn't respond, mostly because Epsilon took his place. "Hey, Wash." Epsilon greeted, voice oddly relaxed. "I'm Epsilon. Maine only took me 'cus... well, he needs me right now. Official business, you know."

Wash was still terribly confused, but he was also tired, and dizzy. "Where are we going?" He asked, voice hardly heard as he began to pass out again.

"Do not worry, Agent Washington. Everything will be perfectly fine now..." Sigma explained, being the last thing Wash saw before passing out, his head pounding like a punching bag being hit over and over again. "Sweet dreams."

* * *

><p>Days passed, mostly involving very long walks all over Sidewinder, trying to find a ship. Maine had yet to make much for conversation (He hardly made a growl), but Wash filled the space by talking to Epsilon and Sigma. Yeah, he was bummed out that he didn't get to have Epsilon yet, but he figured that Maine truly needed him for something, though, he didn't know what it was quite yet. Still, he would wait for Maine to explain whenever he found the time to do so. After all, Wash held alot of trust in his friend, and was certain Maine would speak his mind eventually (Or growl it really).<p>

During one of their long trips, Maine had them set up camp in the desert, allowing Washington to rest. The grey and yellow Freelancer plopped down in the sand without a sound, the sand making attempts at scrambling into his armor, but said armor was sealed tighter than a pickle jar, giving the sand a lost cause for their irritable warfare. Wash looked up suddenly as Maine hovered over him, white armor glistening in the sunlight. The scene reminded Wash of his early war days, of seeing an Elite hovering over him, sword drawn and ready for that final strike- only for a SPARTAN without a name to shoot him down.

"Hey, Maine." Wash greeted, waving offhandedly at the older Freelancer. "What's up?"

Maine didn't respond, rather, he promptly plopped down beside Wash, his elbows resting on his knees as he breathed heavily. "Still hate the heat, huh? Well, that's what happens I guess when we can't power-up our cooling functions on our armor." Wash explained, but froze at the glare Maine shot him. "Hey, I'm just teasing ya, man."

Maine let out a crackly growl, making Wash want to get away from the man, but he stayed where he was. "Maine... you've been acting odd, and not just after we left. You've been acting weird since you got an AI."

"That is none of your business, Agent Washington." Sigma stated suddenly, popping up next to Maine's head, his avatar reflecting off of Maine's visor as a slightly darker orange. "Frankly, you should be happy we came back for you, unlike the other Freelancers. Why not show us a little more gratitude?"

He was so close to calling Sigma out, to blaming him for making Maine so distant, but he held back, believing that Maine was still just adjusting. "Why don't you go find supplies, hm?" Sigma suggested, turning back to Maine.

Wash nodded, walking away, but listened closely as he heard what came from Sigma next. "I told you we shouldn't have gone back for him, he's nothing more than dead weight."

Washington wouldn't like to admit it, but that hurt alot more than it should have.

* * *

><p>They found Agent New York after several more weeks of tracking him.<p>

They found alot of dead-ends on most of their attempts to look for him, leading to alot of scattered and separated equipment from York's abandoned armor set. But they found him alright, barely getting by in a shack of an apartment. The locksmith had gotten a shitty job as a car repair guy not too far off from his apartment, the only reason he had gotten it being that Delta could easily assist him in the repairs without being seen. After all, whose going to notice a little green light under the hood of a car? Well, apparently someone did, because three months after the MOI crashed, Maine and Washington found him in his apartment without many means of escape.

York had, to be fair, fought Washington off fairly well when he'd first seen him. Apparently, word had gotten out among the runaway Freelancers that Wash was with Maine, which meant he'd been ready for him. It also meant Wash had been forced to sit himself down in one of York's tacky chairs in the locksmith's kitchen, an icepack pressed up against his bloodied forehead as Maine tied York up in one of the other tacky chairs, his blind eye torn open violently from when Maine had relentlessly smashed his head into a wall after harming Washington. Both Wash and York thought he'd overdone it, but neither commented, especially not York, who looked dizzy and out of it from the initial damage.

"Where is Agent Carolina, Agent New York?" Sigma asked, his tone icy and strong as he glared daggers at the locksmith. "My records indicate that the two of you were fairly close, therefore you must know where she has resided. Tell us of her location, Agent."

"For the last fucking time, I don't know where 'Lina is!" York spat out, a few droplets of blood splattering onto Maine's too white armor as a result. "She took off with Tex after she explained what the Director did to them... what he did to the Alpha."

"Alpha?" Wash slurred out, a bit more out of it than York, but still conscious and somewhat capable of conversation. "What's this about an Alpha?"

"You don't know?" York sounded surprised... then stopped, a bit of his voice turning bitter as he turned on Maine. "You're real fucking sick, Sigma. He doesn't even know what's going on!" He looked to Wash again, looking frantic. "The Director tortured him, Wash. He tortured the Alpha. Look, you need to-" Maine covered his head with a bag, effectively muffling his frantic pleading.

Wash sat up, looking none-too-pleased by Maine/Sigma's reaction. "Wait, go back... Maine, I wanna hear him talk a bit more. Whose the Alpha again, York?"

Maine shook his head, pulling up the back of the bag to reveal Delta's chip in the back of York's neck. They'd set off an EMP to keep him quiet while they removed him. "It's all nonsense, Agent Washington. Do not listen to Agent New York... Agent Texas is using him to turn you against us. We will silence him."

"Wait! Aren't we gonna turn him in? I mean, if he and the others really worked together to try and murder the Director, shouldn't we turn him in to the UNSC? I thought that was what we were doing here." Washington explained, shuffling awkwardly, unable to do much in his damaged state.

"There is no need for the authorities to get involved, Agent Washington. Let us do our job." Sigma ordered, having Maine violently rip out Delta from York's head. The Freelancer screamed.

Washington remembered York like this: He was a cocky bastard, a real asshole when he first met him, but under all of that, he had a heart of gold. York was a good guy to know, a man Wash could look to not only as a friend, but almost as an older brother. York had been there for alot of things. By his bedside after a harsh mission, carrying him out of the thick of a mission gone wrong with bad intel, high-fiving him as he crossed the finish line in Mario Cart before someone else for once, calling him a goddamn dork for using a swirly straw with his soda pop, helping him tie up a bloody gash on his head muttering 'Way to get your head in the game, Wash'-

"-I can't see."

It was so calm at first, the calmness of a passing storm, off in the distance and dying off, the sound a tree makes when no one is around, it was so damn calm, Wash could feel it trickling like liquid cement into his bones and it fucking hurt. York was on the ground, as Washington remembered how to see better without there being blood in the way, and he could only stare in horror and undetermined shock as York went onto his knees, untied from the ropes because everyone knew he couldn't do jackshit in his state of mind. He had his hands over his eyes, palms digging painfully into his sockets because he couldn't fucking SEE.

Washington stared at York, then up at Maine, eyes wide and horrified at what he'd just done to one of his best friends. "Put him back." He whispered. Upon not getting an answer, he stood up, eyes red almost with his terrible fury. "Put him the fuck back, Maine! He can't see! He can't fucking see!"

Sigma appeared in front of Wash, becoming once again the orange and red glow he was beginning to really fucking dislike. "Agent New York is not required to see where he will be going, Agent Washington. If you wish to step out, you may. However, we will need your assistance in detonating the body."

Wash was shell-shocked, the only thing registering other than Sigma's words being York's broken sobs, his AI's remains an empty pulse in his skull, taking the last of his sight with him. "Is... is there another way? Can we take him with us?"

Upon Maine shaking his head, Wash knew he'd lost, and he gulped, looking back down at the broken man he once called his friend. "I'm... I'm so sorry, York. I just... I'm sorry, Sean." He walked out, stumbling. He didn't know if it was the head trauma or the shock that was making him walk weird. He chose to believe it was the trauma.

Stepping outside the door of the apartment, Washington leaned on the wall outside, listening in as Sigma talked inside. It was too muffled though, so he waited patiently, terrified of what he would hear soon. Two shots fired. A baby down the hall woke up and sobbed, a crow cawed outside, a woman upstairs banged her broom handle against her floor to shut them up. Washington stared at his feet, unable to look up, because if he did and Maine was there, droplets of York's blood on his legs... dear God, it would destroy him. He swallowed, almost crying into the empty air as he tried to control himself, but found he was too scared to even do that.

He knew this wasn't over, that it was only the beginning... but that just made him more afraid.

* * *

><p>North and South were harder to find, but not impossibly so.<p>

This time, Washington was more careful, and avoided the punch meant to knock a few screws loose in his head via North Dakota. He and Maine managed alright in the fight, but they wasted alot of ammo. South seemed pleased with herself, in some sick way, at this realization when Wash brought it to light, but she shut up once she remembered that at least four of those wasted bullets were lodged into her dying brother, who she was tied up next to her very much alive body. Wash had suggested separating them, as they were crafty twins with alot of practice together -He didn't want them to die beside each other, one alive for even a second to feel the weight of the other's corpse- but Sigma had promised their deaths would be faster than York's. Wash found little comfort in that.

Theta was scared, as expected, and North must've gotten wind of York's demise and the details, because he and Theta had designed a handy little anti-EMP that had nearly fried the last working mechanics of Washington's busted up armor mod. This had ticked Maine off, not that Wash found it too unusual, but he had known better than to say shit about it. His only comfort was that he guessed Maine hated Sigma too, if their almost constant silent arguments were anything to go by, but it did very little to help with the situation, and North and South were still held captive, meaning it was only a matter of time before Wash would detonate another friend. He wasn't looking forward to that.

He remembered the Dakota Twins like this: North and South were opposites, but if you put them together, all Hell would break loose. Washington remembered a bombshell blonde with purple highlights in her hair accidentally getting her gum stuck in his mop of hair on his first day, he remembered a blond man built like an Olympian offering to show him around the MOI, he remembered two terribly talented twins putting their heads together to effectively prank everyone on the MOI, even the Director. Those thoughts were warm and fuzzy, some with a sour aftertaste, but still, warm and fuzzy.

They reminded Washington that he'd miss them as well.

"Do you need to step away again, Agent Washington?" Sigma asked, and this time, Wash knew he hated that goddamn AI, he hated him so. Damn. Much.

"No. No I do not." Washington assured the AI, glaring at him so hard, his eyes watered a little. Unless those were the tears, the tears that'd never fallen when York died. Would they finally fall this time?

"You scared of a little blood, Wash?" South asked, her tone mocking, but even Wash could pick up on the fear in her voice. She didn't want to die. He couldn't blame her.

"Not anymore. You get used to it, after awhile." Wash was in a sharing mood, a sharing mood of his thoughts, but he didn't stray further. Best not to let Sigma in.

"You're sick, all of you." North bubbled out, too much fucking blood in his mouth, sputtering out and splattering onto the stony ground. "I'm not letting you take him... I won't let you."

"North... I'm scared." Theta whispered, coming to life, a magenta glow by the blond man's face, illuminating the gashes and blood that stained his pale skin. "Are they... North, I don't want to go with them!"

"Welcome home, Theta." Sigma whispered, going behind North to grab at Theta's chip with Maine's hands, delicately holding the equipment. "We've missed you."

"Oh no you don't!" South screamed in retaliation, reeling back at Maine, only to make him violently tear Theta from North's skull. Her brother screamed.

Washington watched, somehow more horrified this time, but only barely. He could see it in South's eyes, making it more real, that guilt, knowing that it was all your fault that someone you deeply cared for was going to die... he empathized with her. The Freelancer swallowed, too scared to look away, the storm in South's eyes keeping him awake and in that moment, in that heartbeat, in that second as North very slowly passed away. She was no longer a twin. Washington had no idea what that would be like, to have a twin for all his life, only to lose them because he fucked up and tried to be the big hero.

"I believe you should do the honors, Agent Washington." Sigma announced, tossing the pistol to Washington. "Please kill Agent South Dakota."

Washington stared at the gun in his hands, a fully loaded pistol with a shit load of damage to it. Maine's shields were down, he remembered, that one fact bursting forth through his mind like a show of fireworks in the July night sky. He looked to South, who was starting to cry- no- sob for her dead brother. He glared at the pistol in his hands, hating it with every fiber in his being, but not nearly as much as he hated Sigma. Sigma had killed them, killed York, and then North. It didn't matter if Maine and South dealt those blows... it didn't matter, not to Washington, not anymore. He cocked the pistol, and aimed carefully while Maine- no- The Meta stared down at South.

"Sorry about this." Washington muttered, and he pulled the trigger, sealing his fate.

* * *

><p>"This is bullshit." South announced, glaring at the 'For Hire' paper to a diner Washington had brought home to show her. "I refuse to work at a diner."<p>

Wash deflated slightly. "Aw come on, South! It's perfect! You can chase out drunk punks, and I can cook! It'll be great!"

South rolled her eyes, but nonetheless took the paper from Wash, smirking at the messy blond. "Fine, fine. I'll work at Fuckboy's with you."

"It's called Gary's Diner, not Fuckboy's, South." Wash reminded the woman, but he too rolled his eyes, laying down on the couch with a huff. "Can't believe it's been a whole year now." He announced, sighing at the ceiling. "A whole year since I made that decision."

South got on the couch with Wash, covering his mouth with her hands. They were clammy, he noted, and her eyes were red and puffy with tears from her earlier crying. "Shut up." She ordered, but there was a lightheartedness to it. "Let's not talk about that. It was a year ago, and it's over. We'll find Carolina and the others one day, but right now... it's okay. I've got Theta, and you've got Delta. Everything is okay right now."

Wash nodded, still looking ashamed. "Do you... do you think I made the right decision? I mean, I know I shot Maine, and I did good there, but... we deleted Sigma, South. And Epsilon when he went, you know, crazy. Did we do the right thing in killing them?"

"We couldn't save Epsilon's crazy ass," South admitted, looking, for a moment, just as ashamed as Washington. "But Sigma was corrupted with lies, Wash. We couldn't do anything but... kill the dragon." She then brightened up, sitting up on the couch. "Which reminds me! I got a tattoo this morning, wanna see?" She turned around, pulling up the back of her shirt. "Check it!"

Wash gazed at his roommate's back, eyes wide with curiosity. On South's back was an orchestra of colors, a giant, orange/red dragon running from the small of her back and up to her shoulders, the head being chopped off as green, cobalt, and magenta spurts of blood flew out of the opened wound. It was beautiful... and terribly disturbing. Wash chuckled, and ran a hand down the tattoo, a voice in his head reminding him that according to society, boys and girls should not be this close unless they are siblings or partners. He ignored the voice, opting to examine his best and maybe last friend's awesome fucking tattoo.

"That is the most badass tattoo ever, of all time." Washington announced, grinning at South as he pulled the woman's shirt back down. "Does Theta like it?"

"It's creepy." Theta spoke up, popping up into Wash's line of vision. "But it's still cool... it looks like something from Power Rangers."

"Hell yeah it does!" South replied, jumping up and towards the small apartment's kitchen. "This calls for a monster movie marathon! I'll get the popcorn! Wash, you better fucking get Pacific Rim or I will stab you with a butter knife."

"We only have plastic ones, Primadona!" Wash sassed back, narrowly avoiding a projectile plastic butter knife.

"Doesn't mean I can't kill you with 'em!" South screamed back, making her roommates grin right back at her.

Things were not perfect, but they could be worse, Washington mused. He watched South throw the popcorn bag into the microwave, dancing to a pop song in her head. That night, he knew, there would be tears from both of them, at least, Delta told him that much. He smiled though, seeing all of the changes that came with being a runaway murderer of several and the savior of one twin and not two. He did not always consider himself a savior, but he could see some times that he was good, that he had done good for once in his life. And so, he would wait, he would wait because they needed to wait and if they waited, more change would come in good time.

They just... needed to wait, was all.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: _*Loud Sobbing*_ Welcome to the hole that is this AU... expect a fluffy sequel, because FUCK anymore angst. Alot of this is just unknown venting, but hey, still a cool fic I think. Anyways, can be interpreted as Southington, but I much prefer seeing South as a lesbian in this and for her and Wash's relationship to definitely teeter on the edges of intimate and neutral, but it's purely companionship in this fic (There are not enough fics with South and Wash being friends). Enjoy this please. Please also R&R, would be highly appreciated!**

**~CabooseHeart.**


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